Data, personalization, and lots of humanity, amongst the 2016 IMEX trends
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Personalization
The trend, already well under way for companies like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, McDonalds and British Airways will accelerate. UK marketing title The Drum calls it “one of the hottest topics in the marketing industry today.
Consumers today are living seamlessly across different devices and platforms and today expect a highly personalised experience from brands.” And according to Gartner, this trend will continue to grow. People like to be treated as individuals and to tailor how they are treated, whether as an employee or a consumer. Time for events to be really tailor-made (which, frankly, they have traditionally not been…)
Data and analytics
Obvious complement of personalization, data intelligence (maybe not quite “big data” yet in our industry) will be a hot topic. Data gathering and analytics that drill down into the behaviors of individuals and groups are essential to personalization strategies, as IMEX reminds us.
What use do you make of the data you gather in your events? As often with data issues, the problem is not so much gathering than as analyzing them and using them. Make time for that in 2016!
Being human with F2F
In an ever more technological world, the continuing growth of the meetings industry reflects the essential need for F2F contact. Similarly, in contrast to the data driven approach, marketing expert Alan Hart, founder of marketing consultancy avidimpact.com predicts that “being human will return to marketing” because
